After the War
by BlueCookiesandBeasties
Summary: After the end of the Giant War and the Battle of Manhattan, the Seven meet an odd group of heroes in a shawarma shop.


**Hi. Thank you for reading my story. Please review to help me become a better writer.**

**Disclaimer: These characters belong to Rick Riordan and Marvel.**

Percy was dead tired when they had finally defeated the Giants and Gaea. After they had finished cleaning up camp, and had found far too many demigods that hadn't made it. Too many dead friends, or acquaintances, or people that he didn't even know but had still fought for him, and his cause, and the Olympians themselves. Annabeth had told him that he shouldn't blame himself, shouldn't feel guilty for not knowing some of the kids- and they really were, after all, just kids, who didn't deserve to die. But he did feel guilty, because in the end, he was the one who had led them, just like in the Titan War. He felt a little better knowing the Greeks and the Romans had made up their differences in a treaty. No more fighting. A whole lot more peace. Maybe he would have a future with Annabeth where he wasn't constantly preparing for a war or cleaning up after one.

It turned out that the rest of the Seven were dang tired too. He thought that he, Annabeth, and Jason felt it the most though. Leo, Piper, Frank, and Hazel were mostly newbies. For him, Annabeth, and Jason, it was their second war. Their second war. They were seventeen, and Jason was even younger. Nobody really objected when Percy suggested they go to his mom's place in Manhattan. He knew from personal experience that his mom made everything better, because she was the best mom ever. He just wanted to feel like a kid again, and hug her, and eat something blue. Chiron seemed cool with them going into the city, although he looked incredibly distracted when they asked and only grunted, waving them off. Percy and the rest of the Seven (except for Leo, who got an oddly longing expression on his face), each paired up and hopped on a pegasus, he and Annabeth of course taking Blackjack.

When they got to Manhattan, they met their biggest surprise. The city seemed utterly destroyed. Buildings were crumbling and had chunks taken out of their sides, an effect that was mirrored on the sidewalk. Stark tower was now A tower. Percy was pretty certain that he hadn't brought Gaea over here to rampage, and demigods always cleaned up their messes, so he thought that he wasn't the cause of this, but what else could've happened? Surely there hadn't been another battle that he flat out hadn't noticed. At least his mom and Paul were safe- he knew they had left the area and only just now come back because they had known about the Giant war. The buildings looked like a huge spiny ridge had rammed into them, leaving a uniformly sized line of… nothing where parts of them had been. Some people were coming out of hiding, in crowds, tentatively returning to the streets of their city, nervously chattering like the souls in Asphodel and furtively looking around as if the danger, whatever it was, might still be lurking about.

Leo was the first to voice his thoughts- "What the hell happened here? I know I didn't have the time to do this."

Percy responded softly " I don't know" as Jason, Piper and Frank shook their heads, and Hazel looked on with a confused expression. He could almost see the gears whirring in Annabeth's head, trying to make sense of what had happened.

She spoke up at last " I don't think whatever this was, I don't think that we or the Romans caused it. But I don't know what happened. The mortals couldn't have caused this, however we should ask them." Annabeth pointed to a group of mortals that stood relatively quiet, observing the ruined city.

The half-bloods walked over to the New Yorkers, who looked up at them in surprise. Jason took the lead in asking questions.

"What happened here? Who did this?"

One of the mortals stepped forward as apparent leader. She responded, "We're really not all that sure. But these… things came out of the sky above Stark tower and started attacking us. They looked like aliens, and they had this giant snake creature that swam through the air and wrecked the buildings," She gestured to the decimated skyscrapers lining the street, "The Avengers saved us and told us to hide, so we did. I think they won."

A young boy piped up from the back of the crowd, " I saw Iron Man go up through the hole in the sky!"

Hazel was the one to ask the question they were all thinking, "Who are the Avengers?" The crowd looked shocked. Apparently these Avengers people were famous. Percy wouldn't know. He had been fighting a war and was missing for quite some time, and mortal heroes weren't really on his radar. The group broke into scattered answers, and Percy caught snippets of it…, "they're our heroes"..., "they saved Manhattan"..., " I could really go for a cheeseburger". Excluding that last one, which he really didn't see as having anything to do with the question at hand, they didn't seem to have a specific answer for them.  
>It was Percy who turned to his comrades with, "Let's get out of here," when the mortals didn't stop their speaking. They continued walking down the street, noting that almost no one was out on the cityscape yet, and that even the buildings with little damage didn't seem to have anyone in them.<p>

About ten minutes later, as they continued on their path to his mom's apartment, because not even a destroyed city could stop them in their quest for blue cookies, they came upon an anomaly (Annabeth had taught him that word). A shop- shawarma, it said, was brilliantly lighted, and in addition to its owner attempting to sweep up the rubble where the shop had been partially demolished, it contained six customers casually eating as if nothing were wrong. As if the city hadn't been practically annihilated. He looked at the others to make sure they saw too, and walked over to the shawarma shop.

As he got closer, Percy saw that the customers were dressed...differently, to say the least. One man was dressed in full armor and a flowing cape. Another was wearing an extremely patriotic costume, and there was a red haired woman sporting a black cat-suit. The other three men looked relatively normal, except for the one that had a sort of glow emanating from under his shirt, but judging by their company, they were most definitely not normal. The man in armor had the aura of a god. Percy would know. He'd met, and pissed off, a whole lot of gods. This only made him more curious, and Percy entered the shop, Annabeth at his side and the others trailing behind him.

The bell rang when they opened the door, and the oddly dressed customers all swiveled their heads to face the demigods, almost comically in sync with each other. The god was the first to speak, "Hello, fellow warriors. I am Thor. I sense you must not want to share your ancestry, but please, join our table and eat, as we do, after your long battle"

Percy had no idea how to respond to that, but he supposed since this dude wasn't going all "Hey, Greek demigods" in front of the mortals, he would sit and eat shawarma with him. Besides, it wasn't exactly the best course of action to ignore a god, especially one who didn't seem hades-bent on vaporizing him. So he pulled up a chair and sat with the strangers, who he was beginning to suspect were the "Avengers", with the others following suit. There were a couple of seconds of awkward silence before the man with the glow coming from his chest spoke, " Um, hey Thor buddy, you mind introducing us to our new buddies over here? Or maybe telling us why they are here?". Percy gave a subtle shake of his head, and Thor replied, " They do not wish to share their identities, Tony Stark, and there is nothing to know but that they are warriors and have fought a great battle as we have". The man- Tony Stark- said okay, but as they sat there, he continued pestering them for information, refusing to take no for an answer.

Piper decided to take care of that problem for them with her charmspeak, "You do not want to know who we are". Percy could feel the power of her words flowing over them. They obviously had no effect on Thor, however, and the god smirked, as he clearly knew what the daughter of Aphrodite was doing.

The rest of the meal continued in good-natured talking. The red haired woman and one of the men quietly talked, and Frank eventually struck up a conversation involving archery with the man she was talking to. Jason, Piper, and Thor were talking together (there was a lot of lightning involved), and Percy found that he enjoyed talking to the man who introduced himself as Steve Rogers, but handed him over to Hazel when he found out that he too, was from the forties. What was up with people from the forties ending up in his time? Not that he minded, of course. After Steve and Hazel began talking, Percy wandered over to where Annabeth and Leo were talking about things above his head with Tony Stark and the other man, who was called Bruce. When Percy entered the conversation with what he knew was a stupid comment, Annabeth gave him a light laugh and a kiss on the cheek. She also explained a few words to him, so he could sorta follow their scientific jargon. Finally, the conversations wound down, the meal was finished, and the sun began to follow its descent below the horizon. Percy stood, and the demigods said goodbye to the Avengers, thanking them for sharing a meal with them. It had been quite relaxing to talk with strangers, and not about the recently won war. (The Seven did eventually make it to his mom's apartment, where they enjoyed blue chocolate chip cookies).

Later, it came to Nick Fury's attention that the Avengers had company after the Battle of Manhattan. Based on the video cameras, he had learned that Thor had called them warriors. And to Fury, warriors were either allies or enemies. When he found that he couldn't see the so- called warriors faces at any point during the video, Fury questioned the Avengers. Natasha and Clint didn't say anything, and strangely, the rest could not remember a single thing about the warriors except their conversations. Each swore that it was as if a fog had clouded their vision.


End file.
